Mysteries at Lake Thomas

Stevens County, Washington contains a number of picturesque mountain lakes east of the county seat in Colville. They have been popular vacation spots since the early Twentieth Century. (Most were on private homesteads until the late Thirties, when they were purchased under a New Deal federal program and absorbed into the Colville National Forest.)

Early Lake Thomas. U.S. Forest Service.

Near mid-May, 1932, sisters Blanche Richardson and Leona Stevens drove the 25 miles or so out from Colville to ready the family-run resort on Lake Thomas for the summer season. The property most likely still belonged to their father, who was now spending more time back in upstate New York. The resort included a number of rental cabins, and a structure that housed a store, post office, and living quarters with bedrooms on the second floor. Only one cabin was occupied, the renter being Arthur E. Carssow, a Colville druggist on a fishing excursion.

On the evening of May 16, a car parked in front of the store and Harry Chitwood, Blanche’s former husband, got out. The year before, she had filed for divorce, which was granted … with a provision that allowed her to re-assume her previous married name. The tragedy that followed left many unanswered questions, which started with the murder itself.

In early news reports, sister Leona said that Chitwood “entered the store and started shooting without warning.” And Stevens County Sheriff Dick Bone opined that “the slaying probably was the result of jealousy.” Of course, the sheriff arrived at the scene after Blanche died and while Chitwood was on the run. He did not identify a subject of Chitwood’s jealousy.

Within hours, that story changed. Leona now claimed that Chitwood came into the store and demanded that Blanche give their marriage another chance. He then dragged her to the car so they could return to town. She, of course, said that it was all over between them.

In this new version, Leona said the two were inside the car when Harry pulled out “a heavy revolver” and shot Blanche three times. However, reports do not mention blood, bullets, or bullet holes in the car. In any case, Leona screamed when he shot Blanche, so Chitwood supposedly fired a warning shot in her general direction. Then he ran into the forest. We have no notion of why he didn’t just drive off in the car.

Leona helped her sister upstairs so she could rest on a bed, then called the sheriff. Blanche soon died, and Leona apparently fainted. Still, she was downstairs when a wounded Arthur Carssow stumbled into the store. He claimed that he had rushed from his cabin to investigate the gunfire and encountered Chitwood on the trail. Harry had supposedly yelled something about his wife committing suicide, and then shot Arthur twice. Leona again helped the victim to a bed. Later, he was transported to a hospital in Colville, where he was “not expected to live.”

Mount Carmel Hospital, Colville. Hospital history

Chitwood turned himself in to authorities the next morning, and freely admitted that he had killed his wife. If he said why he shot Carssow, that explanation never made it into the newspapers. Authorities filed first degree murder charges against Chitwood three days after the shooting. Meanwhile, Carssow’s resilience had surprised the physicians who removed the bullets from his stomach. News reports said, “They were hopeful of his recovery.” Also, arrangements were being made to send Blanche’s body back to New York.

Blanche Mildred Hills was born in March 1893, in Chautauqua County, New York, where her family had been early pioneers. She first married when she was just fifteen years old. The couple had had no children when her husband died by drowning, the victim of an accident or possibly a robbery and murder.

A year later, Blanche married Neil Richardson. He was 23 years old, she now 21. They had a daughter, Jennie, in late 1915. Sadly, Blanche’s marriage to Richardson fell apart some time around World War I. We don’t know why they split, but records show that Neil entered the Army in early 1918 and spent over a year in France.

Where Blanche and her daughter spent the next three or four years is unknown. However, her father had relatives in Washington state, and possibly Oregon. For years, he and Blanche’s mother had made trips to the West in search of possible investments. By late 1918, they had moved to Stevens County. A newspaper item shows they owned the property on Lake Thomas in the spring of 1920. Blanche certainly followed them west because, in Portland around 1922, she married Harry M. Chitwood.

Born in Oregon, Chitwood married there first in 1906, when he was about twenty-four years old. That marriage ended within two or three years, but we don’t know how or why. In 1915, he married again, in Vancouver, Washington (just across the Columbia River from Portland). That ended by divorce, in early 1919, on the grounds of infidelity.

Blanche and Harry spent five or six years in Portland after their marriage, with Harry working as a chauffeur and bus driver. They then moved to Stevens County. In 1930, Harry gave his occupation as “resort proprietor,” but – as noted above – Blanche divorced him a year later. The grounds were “non-support and cruelty.” She continued with the family business while Harry drove for an outfit that transported freight and passengers between Colville and Spokane.

A few days after the shooting, Sheriff Bone sent evidence for the case to criminologist Luke S. May in Seattle. May was not hired to come view the crime scene directly. Exhibits included a Smith & Wesson .32-20 revolver surrendered by Chitwood, and a Colt .38 Special revolver. May also received four bullets. One had been removed from Blanche’s head and was the only one of the four where tests detected traces of blood. (The other two fatal slugs were apparently lost.)

The second bullet May received had been found on the ground near the resort headquarters. However, it was too badly “mashed up,” as May put, to have any use as evidence. The final two bullets came with no provenance. (We’ll return to those in a moment.)

S&W .32-20 Revolver

May dated his report on Friday, May 27. The Smith & Wesson left rather faint marks on test bullets. As could be expected, the fatal slug was slightly distorted. Worse yet, the medical examiner had done a crude job of extracting it with forceps. Still, with his trained eye, May managed to verify that the Smith & Wesson had fired the fatal bullet.

However, he also warned county officials that, in his expert opinion, enlarged photographs of the comparison would be essentially useless as court exhibits. Jurors would only “see” the conspicuous scratches left on the death bullet by the forceps. Prosecutors would be hard pressed to get them to ignore that and correctly judge the faint, slightly-distorted barrel marks. He advised them to send him a bullet “from the man who was wounded.”

May found that the Colt 38 Special had “one very distinctive mark on one of the lands,” allowing him to prove that the other two bullets were from that gun. However, he also discovered a splotch inside the barrel that had become corroded since those slugs were fired from the weapon. He wondered how that had happened.

In his reply letter, the sheriff informed May that the .38-caliber revolver belonged to Arthur Carssow. The slight corrosion was easily explained: Leona Stevens had spilled booze on the gun when she handed the wounded man a drink. This was the first mention anywhere that the druggist had a weapon, and that it had been fired. That information never appeared in the newspapers, ever.

The rest of the sheriff’s reply is rather puzzling, given the sequence of events. He said that it would be “some time” before they could “supply you with any more bullets.” As noted above, Carssow had proven amazingly resilient after his operation. By the end of the month, his physicians were sure he would recover, barring a sudden setback.

Yet here, on June 1, the sheriff was saying Carssow had “two bullets in his stomach,” and was in no condition to have them removed. Also, he said “let this case rest until you hear from our office again.” May replied two days later. He would “await further orders” and reiterated that a bullet from Carssow “will undoubtedly be of much more value to us than the bullet taken from the head.” A couple days after that, local newspapers reported that Carssow would be back at work the next day.

Another month passed. Then, on July 7, Sheriff Bone wrote to say, “Please be advised that we do not choose to go any further in the Chitwood shooting case as we have gathered evidence now that will put him away for some time.”

However, no jury ever heard any facts about the case. That fall, Chitwood pled guilty to second degree murder and received a ten to fifteen year prison sentence. He would spend less than seven years in prison for murdering Blanche and almost killing Arthur Carssow. In fact, he wasn’t even charged for the attack on the druggist. Why not? We don’t know.

A brief item in a Spokane newspaper on February 23, 1933 raised more questions. Carssow was suing Sheriff Dick Bone for the loss of his car in a garage fire “several months” earlier: “The car had been struck by bullets and was being held by Sheriff Bone in a local garage as evidence.”

That was the only hint to the public that another gun and more shooting had been involved in the Chitwood-Carssow case. The number of gaps in the open records, even with May’s papers, invites several interpretations of what actually happened. A few could be quite sinister. However, we might blame some of the problems on the fact that Sheriff Bone was “in over his head.”

Originally from Tennessee, Kelly K. “Dick” Bone moved to Washington after 1900 and married there in 1910. He claimed a homestead, but in 1914 purchased a country restaurant on the main road about fourteen miles south of Colville. That venture apparently did not do well. When he registered for the draft in 1918, he was working as a night watchman. After some time as a village constable, he became a Stevens County deputy sheriff in 1923. He was appointed sheriff four years later.

Bone had zero training as an investigator or law enforcement officer. He served as deputy under two sheriffs who were equally untaught, being former farmers and stockmen. The county Prosecuting Attorney would have been no help either. A former merchant, he hadn’t been to college or law school. After “reading” law to qualify around 1916, he had handled mostly commercial cases before being elected Prosecutor in 1930.

They hired criminologist May, but provided no useful context beyond the fact that one bullet came from the victim’s head. The S&W .32-20 revolver is a powerful weapon. Where did the other Chitwood bullets go? Surely there were blood stains? Moreover, without testing, they had no physical evidence to prove he shot Carssow. For that matter, where did Bone find the two slugs fired from the Carssow weapon?

This list of unanswered question goes on and on. However, barring a revelation in a newly-discovered diary or memoir, we shall never know what really happened out by the lake on that deadly day.
                                                                                

References: “[Background: Chitwood-Richardson Murder],” Buffalo Evening News, Springville Journal, New York; Oregon Daily Journal, Portland, The Oregonian, Portland, Oregon; Spokesman-Review, Spokane, Colville Examiner, Spokane Chronicle, Washington (April 1899 – (July 1930).

“[Chitwood-Richardson Murder Sequence],” News-Tribune, Tacoma, Spokesman-Review, Spokane, Bellingham Herald, Seattle Times, Spokane Chronicle, Washington (May 1932 – February 1933).

Craig E. Holstine, Forgotten Corner: A History of the Colville National Forest, Colville Statesman-Examiner, Incorporated, Washington (1987).

Luke S. May, Luke S. May Papers, Special Collections, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington (1969).

David Wilma, “Stevens County – Thumbnail History,” Online Encyclopedia of Washington State History, HistoryLink.org, Seattle, Washington  (November 5, 2006).

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